Archive for the ‘Science’ Category

The Capybara .. the Vatican’s fish. As reported in Scientific American, October, 1994: Lots of capybara meat is/was eaten by Colombians and Venezuelans who appealed to the Vatican during the 16th century in order to be allowed to eat capybaras during Lent. The pope back then declared the capyb[...]

Major Threat to Religion? Clergy People Coming Out as Atheists by Greta Christina on AlterNet What happens when a clergy person — a minister, a priest, a rabbi, an imam — realizes he doesn’t believe in God? And what happens when he says it out loud? What happens when they fi[...]

And some people’s knowledge of science hasn’t changed much since then. The blurb reads: “MAP OF THE SQUARE AND STATIONARY EARTH. BY PROF. ORLANDO FERGUSON, HOT SPRINGS, SOUTH DAKOTA. Four Hundred Passages in the Bible that Condemns the Globe Theory, or the Flying Earth, and None Su[...]

Black kids do need Black teachers. More importantly, Black kids need teachers that care. One might think that all Black teachers have Black kids best interest in mind, but that is not always the case. I have read about the shortage of Black teachers, which is a very fundamental problem. Statistics s[...]

An industry like no other, with profit margins to rival Google Abstracted from an article by Stephen Buranyi in the Guardian ….. Scientists create work under their own direction – funded largely by governments – and give it to publishers for free ….. it is as if the New Yorke[...]

The Trump administration wants to make massive cuts in research while claiming to spend MORE money on science. The TRUMP Government, led by The Secretary of HHS and the Director of the OMB, have previously proposed draconian cuts to the NIH budget. Now we know the vehicle for the cuts .. an att[...]

In a pleasant surprise, Trump has nominated Ned Sharpless, a physician in charge of the cancer center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, to lead the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The nomination received praise from the cancer research community.[...]

WHILE FRANCE OFFERS US SCIENTISTS FUNDING IF THEY EMIGRATE, NSF CUTS PhD TRAINING PROGRAM Letter from the NSF: Dear Colleague: With this Dear Colleague Letter, the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) is notifying members of the research communities served by the Division of Integrative Organis[...]